I used to think that a butterfly cane was too fiddly and likely to distort on reduction but now I have improved my cane building and reducing skill somewhat I decided it was time to tackle it. I had a good browse through flickr at butterfly canes for guidance
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| Cane ready for packing |
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| Ready for reduction |
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| Finished butterfly canes |
I am pretty chuffed with how it turned out. The colour on the wings is actually a three way skinner blend from white through a custom blue/turquoise mix to violet (Kato clay). I started off thinking I would make one wing then use it in 4 parts to construct the butterfly. I realised after I had shaped the blue bits I shouldn't have done that so cut it in half and made 2 slightly different wings by changing their shape slightly and then adding different amounts of white dots on the edges.
I had pushed the top and bottom wings together to see how they looked but then decided I didn't like the shape of the bottom wing. I went to pull them apart but they were well stuck and I would damage them taking them apart so I was stuck with them like that. I looks OK but I will do it a bit differently next time.
I tried to pack it carefully and reduced it straight away. I reduced it to 3 different sizes the largest being 2.5cm (1") and the smallest being 7mm.
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